Line #181 Film/BattleLosAngeles


1	[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/battle_los_angeles.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:299:''[[{{Tagline}} It's not war. It's survival.]]'']]
3
4	->''"There are massive casualties in New York, defensive lines are being setup in Boston, and at 13:15 Zulu Time we lost communications with San Francisco and San Diego, their status is unknown. What we do know is that we are the last offensive force on the west coast. We can'' '''not''' ''lose Los Angeles."'''
5
6	''Battle: Los Angeles'' is a science fiction film about AlienInvasion directed by Jonathan Liebesman. It was released March 11, 2011.
7
8	Meteors rain into the ocean a couple of miles off of major coastal cities -- one being UsefulNOtes/LosAngeles. Within minutes an alien army marches out of the surf. The suntanning populace on the beach is shredded as the aliens march into the city proper. With the arrival of their aircraft, the aliens quickly establish ground- and air-superiority.
9
10	As Los Angeles is evacuated, Marine Staff Sergeant Nantz (Creator/AaronEckhart) leads his new platoon and an inexperienced lieutenant against the attackers. Their main goal is to evacuate civilians ahead of a planned bombing offensive, but matters are complicated when they must destroy the enemy's command and control center. Meanwhile, similar battles are waged across the world in other cities.
11
12	A tie-in game of the same name was published by Konami on March 2011.
13
14	Not to be confused with the Music/RageAgainstTheMachine album '''''The''' Battle '''of''' Los Angeles'', nor with the similarly-titled DirectToVideo ''[[TheMockbuster Battle of Los Angeles]]'' released the same year. However, both films are inspired by the real-life Battle of Los Angeles.
15
16	----
17	!!''Battle: Los Angeles'' provides examples of the following tropes:
18
19	* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Several, but the most notable after they finally arrive at the FOB.
20	* ActionGirl: Tech Sergeant Santos.
21	--> '''Santos:''' All due respect, Staff Sergeant, I didn't get this far based on my good looks.
22	* TheAlcoholic: Lenihan drinks five beers in a row during the party.
23	* AlienInvasion: Of the "All-Out Attack" variety. All major cities near a coast are being attacked. A scientist seen on TV during the movie surmises that the aliens are there to colonize Earth, which explains them shooting anything that moves instead of just concentrating on military targets like they would if they had any other plans.
24	* AliensAreBastards: The aliens open fire on everything -- civilian or otherwise -- and are speculated to be here to [[MarsNeedsWater steal our water]].
25	* AlienBlood: The aliens have translucent yellow blood.
26	* AllThereInTheManual: There's a site out there called "unidentified enemy" that details a few things about the aliens, their technology and operations. It can be accessed by visiting the American version of the interactive attacks/sightings map and entering 031111 in the "Restricted Access" field.
27	* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The aliens are there to ''colonize'' Earth. They need liquid water for their technology, and it will take a long time to gather it all.
28	* AnachronicOrder: Just a little bit, with the initial jittery helicopter flying into combat scene backtracking to the morning before the day of the alien invasion.
29	* AnyoneCanDie: Not very many of the Marines make it out of Los Angeles. [[spoiler: None of the Army personnel that joined up make it out alive. [[Creator/MichelleRodriguez Tech Sergeant Santos]], the lone Airman, however, does.]]
30	* ArmCannon: The aliens have their weapons surgically grafted to their arm.
31	* ArmorIsUseless: The aliens' weapons consistently go through Marine body armor like it's not even there, being advanced alien technology. However, there are occasions where a marine's armor/helmet protects them from a glancing blow that might otherwise have been lethal.
32	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: For a movie that is often held up as an example of a realistic portrait of the Marine Corps, it gets several things wrong.
33	** Everyone pronounces the acronym for forward operating base (FOB) as "eff-oh-bee," rather than "fob," a mistake that would get them relentlessly mocked in real life.
34	** The film portrays laser target designators as emitting a visible beam of light, which is not accurate, as they use coded infrared beams to specifically avoid being spotted with the naked eye, only letting the observer know that the laser is on by displaying an icon in the viewfinder. This would have prevented [=SSgt=] Nantz from aiming it as he does, simply holding the device at hip level and hip firing it.
35	** The film portrays the Copperhead rounds as slow-moving cruise missiles, when in reality they were Cannon Lauched Guided Projectile Artillery Rounds that would fly over the target at incredible speed, engage thrusters, and come around the opposite side of the target to avoid cluing in the enemy as to where the round came from. Even in the round's "Glide Mode" it was still much faster than the way the film portrays.
36	* AttackDrone: The aliens make use of unmanned "Wedge Ships" that, according to the tie-in website, can go Mach 7 (which explains why aliens get air superiority easily) and can combine to form {{Flying Saucer}}s, which are essentially bombers/gunships that pack more firepower to pound the ground.
37	* AttackItsWeakPoint: The aliens' only obviously-vital organ is some sort of water sac to the left of where the heart would be on a human. Nothing else, headshots included, is instantly fatal, and they will often shrug off bullet wounds, though they obviously feel pain. Grenades do the trick in a pinch.
38	* AwesomePersonnelCarrier: The Marines use an LAV-25 to get from the Santa Monica Airport to the extraction point. Though the .50 cal is used, we sadly don't get to see its Bushmaster chain gun in action.
39	* BadassBystander: Mr. Rincon, who grabs a rifle and kills an ambushing alien without hesitation [[spoiler:and gets mortally wounded in the process]].
40	* BattleCry: "Retreat, Hell!" Which is the real life motto of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. Nantz even explains to Michele the origins of the motto, in which Major Lloyd W. Williams was ordered to retreat, only to respond, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!"
41	* BayonetYa: At one point, the protagonists fight the aliens hand-to-hand with bayonets mounted on their rifles. Which is to say they stab multiple bayonets into one alien, then fire full auto. Then kick it. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Then shoot it some more.]]
42	* BiggerStick: The aliens' main advantage. Their UCAV can go mach 7, which completely destroys any air superiority the Americans had, and can serve as extremely deadly bombing platforms that, when linked up, can take a lot of damage. It takes a barrage of fire to kill alien infantry (though, much like human infantry, they do have a weak spot -- and even that is guarded), while they have guns that easily shred through body armor ''and'' cause a great deal of internal damage, as well as mobile turets and hover tanks.
43	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Sure, the tide seems to be turning against the aliens, but millions of people -- if not more -- are still dead worldwide, and numerous cities have been completely destroyed. And the Los Angeles command ship may have been destroyed, but there's more in other major coastal cities where the invaders are establishing beachheads and there's no word on the two attacking the East Coast, or the rest of the world. The humans have won the battle, not the war. Not to mention that the aliens will defend their centers even more viciously.]]
44	* BizarreAlienBiology: The invaders look vaguely humanoid, but they have cetaceous forms, and their bodies seem to be held up and shaped by some form of cybernetic endoskeleton, with weird turbines and other implants. They have no real brain as humans understand them (the head area seems to contain no vital organs) and the only way to quickly kill them beyond using massive force to blow them apart is to target a orb-like organ/machine part located to the immediate left of where the heart would be on a human. That being said, their ''psychology'' is very human, something which humanity takes disquieting note of.
45	* BlownAcrossTheRoom: More understated than most examples, but the aliens' weapons consistently hit with enough force to knock humans over. Glancing hits consistently knock Marines off their feet unless the shot goes completely through their bodies.
46	* BookEnds: The overhead shot early in the movie overlooking Los Angeles [[spoiler: before LA gets pummeled to the ground]] is reshot in the end [[spoiler:when marine reinforcements fly in a battle-torn LA ready to retake the city]].
47	* BossBattle: [[spoiler:The final battle of the film with the command center is similar, with [[OneWingedAngel the boss having to be badly wounded before unleashing its final form]] while sacrificing [[{{Mooks}} drones]] so that the Boss won't get hit.]]
48	* BottomlessMagazines: Averted -- the chaingun is explicitly stated to only have 250 rounds before they even use it, and one of the Marines mentions being low on ammo. The humans also frequently have to throw magazines to each other. Unlike the aliens, the humans avoid MoreDakka.
49	* BloodKnight: Kerns is eager to get back into combat, though it's clear that he has PTSD.
50	* CarFu:
51	** Aliens, meet a Marine LAV armed with a Bushmaster and a hell of a lot of momentum.
52	** The aliens do it effectively during a battle on a freeway, sending rockets to make cars smash some unfortunate Marines and National Guard soldiers.
53	* CatScare:
54	** The first firefight begins with a dog walking by.
55	** Shortly afterward, the dryer going off right behind Lenihan.
56	* TheChainsOfCommanding: Nantz has to deal with the guilt and memory of several Marines he led to their deaths in Iraq before the alien invasion. Martinez has to deal with the stress of this being his first combat deployment, particularly when [[spoiler: the casevac helicopter carrying four of his wounded Marines is shot down.]]
57	* CombiningMecha: The aliens have wedge-shaped hovering gunships which can link up to form roughly saucer-shaped aerial battle platforms.
58	* CoolOldGuy: Staff Sergeant Nantz. 20 long years in the Corps, and the first scene we see him in plays up him starting to slow down compared to the young guys. Once the aliens land in downtown LA, he turns into a SergeantRock.
59	* CurbStompBattle: The initial alien attack only becomes a curb stomp once the {{Attack Drone}}s show up and steal air superiority from the humans. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, after Nantz's team takes out the drone control center, the Battle in Los Angeles turns in humanity's favor.]] It's also implied that LA is one of the few areas on the planet that humanity is actually holding out against the invaders, as the aliens are shown to have taken control of several other cities around the globe, including ''Paris'', which is a couple of hundred miles/kilometers inland from the coastline.
60	* DarkestHour: The FOB has been wiped off of the map, and a helicopter pilot picks up Nantz's squad and tells him that the military is abandoning the city.
61	* TheDeadHaveNames: Nantz was responsible for the deaths of four Marines in Iraq, one of whom was the brother of one of the men under his command. At one of the most quiet and dramatic moments in the movie, he lists off the names, ranks, and serial numbers of each of those men, showing that their deaths still haunt him.
62	* DeadlineNews: A journalist and cameraman covering the aliens' landing are the unfortunate victims of the first rocket barrage.
63	* DeathFromAbove: The USAF's original plan to stop the invasion; keep the aliens contained on the Santa Monica shoreline and carpet bomb them. [[spoiler:It doesn't work, and the air strike never happens. Whether the B-52s were shot down or if the Air Force chose not to risk them in the face of the aliens' air superiority is momentarily speculated upon.]]
64	** The aliens prove to be much better at this than humans; not only did they come down from the sky in large meteor-like landing craft, but they use very versatile 'Wedge Ship' [=UCAVs=] to quickly establish air superiority over LA. The wedges can even combine into a flying-saucer like floating siege platform that can rain incendiary munitions down like artillery.
65	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: A less typical example, where a couple of Marines are shown partying, getting way too drunk and otherwise playing the trope straight, others are picking out flowers for their wedding, trying to retire with some dignity, or having a quiet goodbye with a loved one at their grave. Even the undeveloped ones have nicknames and background banter that keep them from being too flat.
66	* DoomedHurtGuy: All of the squad members injured in the first act are loaded onto an evac helicopter which is promptly shot down by an enemy ship.
67	* {{EMP}}: The alien command center uses such a massive amount of radio communication that it blacks out a huge area around it, and almost takes out the evac chopper Nantz and his remaining crew are using to escape.
68	* EnsignNewbie: Second Lieutenant Martinez has just graduated from Officer Training, but is a smart leader who has his platoon's respect. In his first engagement he freezes up, unable to act, and when the casevac helicopter is shot down he goes into a HeroicBSOD. It isn't until Nantz, who has no shortage of combat experience, delivers a sharp, confidence-boosting lecture to him away from the others that he shapes up. By the time of the highway battle, he's confidently giving orders and deploying his men.
69	** Lenihan also gives off this vibe, though he proves to be awfully competent in combat.
70	* {{Expy}}: Simmons has more than a few similar qualities to [[Film/{{Aliens}} Hudson]], both of whom are overconfident marines who, after their squad is attacked by a hostile alien race, freaks out and goes into hysterics.
71	* EveryBulletIsATracer: For the aliens, anyway, since their guns either fire incendiary rounds, or are energy bolts.
72	* EverybodysDeadDave: The team finally reaches the Santa Monica FOB, and finds [[spoiler: nothing but wreckage and dead bodies.]]
73	* EyeScream: Guerrero is blinded after being blasted in the face by one of the aliens' guns.
74	* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: While not a reproductive example, T/SGT Elena Santos gets a faceful of alien guts -- even in her mouth—from shooting one point-blank, causing the Marine riding shotgun to joke, "You let him do you on a first date."
75	* FastRoping:
76	** Notably, two children have to do it in order to escape a slowly approaching walking tank destroying everything on a Highway overpass.
77	** Two of the Marines spotting from the top of a building employ this to get to an evacuation vehicle fast.
78	** Nantz and the others do this to infiltrate the area where the alien command center is, since the electrical interference makes it too risky to land the chopper.
79	*** It was actually a question of fuel - if chopper had landed, it would not have had enough fuel to take off.
80	* FantasticCasteSystem: The aliens have a minor example of this, with several different biological variations on their soldiers depending on roles. You've got your basic soldiers, very tall, floating, and gangly leaders, and smaller troops dedicated to operating support weapons and scouting.
81	* AFatherToHisMen: Sgt. Nantz strives to be one. A few of his men aren't so sure, especially since there's been rumors that he purposefully got his entire team killed in Iraq.
82	* FireForgedFriends: Nantz and Lockett are this by the final battle, after Lockett gives up his JerkAss behaviour towards Nantz in the face of his clear SurvivorGuilt and Nantz's [[ItHasBeenAnHonor clear respect for Lockett's deceased brother]], one of the men who died under his command in Iraq.
83	* FreakOut: Simmons after the first firefight with the aliens.
84	* FreezeFrameBonus:
85	** If one looks closely during the scene where Lenihan is shooting the alien emerging from the pool, one of his shots hits the alien's ArmCannon, causing it to spark and malfunction. When the alien emerges from the pool again, it appears to actually fire its gun right at Nantz, but the weapon misfires, throwing up a cloud of blink-and-you'll-miss-it sparks.
86	** During a CNN broadcast, we see that even in the midst of an alien invasion the network still bothers to include the Dow Jones Industrial Average in their graphics. Not surprisingly, it's taken a bit of a hit.
87	* FragileSpeedster: The Drones are easily taken out, but the tie-in website states they can go Mach 7, far faster than human jets.
88	* GlassCannon: The Drones are easily taken out, but they pack a punch.
89	* GodzillaThreshold: Once the aliens invade, it's decided pretty much right off the bat to evacuate the civilians then bomb the coastal cities being invaded. The aliens thwart this by establishing air superiority.
90	* GovernmentConspiracy: Hinted at. The tie-in website and trailers indicate that the government has ''some'' prior knowledge dating all the way back from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (though far too little) about the aliens. [[spoiler:Tech Sergeant Santos' original mission to find an enemy C&C asset and knowledge of the alien drones is another indicator.]]
91	* HeroWithBadPublicity: Nantz has a very bad reputation after his tour in Iraq. Even though his orders and actions throughout the invasion are mostly sound, the marines all seem to hate his guts. It's only at the climax after his RousingSpeech that the team finally comes together and trusts his leadership.
92	* HeroicBSOD: A couple of the Marines, particularly LT Martinez, have these when the aliens bring their drones into the fray. [[TheChainsOfCommanding Martinez's is compounded by his feeling of having failed his men]], though a private pep talk from [[SergeantRock Nantz]] snaps him out of it.
93	* HeroicSacrifice:
94	** After being wounded during the shootout on the freeway, [[spoiler: Lieutenant Martinez]] crawls into a bus and detonates a bag of C4, taking out a group of aliens and their WalkingTank in the process.
95	** [[spoiler:Hector's father]] takes a bullet to the gut after picking up [[spoiler: Motorola's]] M16 to kill an alien trying to surprise the Marines rappelling down a child to safety.
96	* HiddenDepths: Lenihan comes off as a fresh-faced rookie, but he's an expert marksman and is the first to injure an alien.
97	* HopelessWar: The war against the aliens appears to be this way when they quickly gain air superiority and make massive headway in tearing Los Angeles apart.
98	* HordeOfAlienLocusts: Experts being interviewed during some news transmission surmise that the aliens are here to steal our resources (namely, water) due to their tactics (complete eradication instead of a proper occupation). Indeed, the water level ''drops'' half-way through the film.
99	* HollywoodTactics:
100	** Averted. The Marines use real tactics. It's also subverted and invoked in the beginning -- the aliens initially have no air support and the US military attempts to exploit this by arranging for a carpet bombing of the coastal neighborhoods of LA. This plan changes once the aliens get their drones in the air.
101	** Notably, the alien soldiers also act like, well, soldiers, and use tactics as well, such as HandSignals. The aliens also appear to take out all human anti-aircraft weapons, since none of the ones firing at the beginning of the invasion are firing on the drones.
102	** The CH-46 Sea Knights fly down along the beach toward the FOB because artillery is being fired into the urban areas in Santa Monica. Helicopters in general are routed around areas where artillery is being fired to avoid being hit by airborne shells. This also conveniently justifies a SceneryGorn scene as the Marines are flown in.
103	** Zigzagged with the plan to bomb Santa Monica: while it's based on real-life emergency plans in case of a West Coast invasion of LA, modern air theory and experiences have led to the conclusion that carpet bombing is inefficient and not cost-effective for the amount of effort and munitions expended. On the other hand, the movie is ambiguous on ''what'' they're going to use; it could be a carpet-bombing or it could be simply very free use of regular munitions or even tactical nuclear strikes. All that's said is that the Air Force is going to bomb everything within Santa Monica to oblivion.
104	* HopeSpot: In the middle of the highway battle, Lockett takes control of a .50 caliber machine gun in an abandoned Humvee and uses that to blow up the alien troops on the upper highway that have been shooting up the rest of the platoon. Enemy fire drops off, and the Marines start cheering. Then the WalkingTank shows up.
105	* HoverTank: One makes a brief appearance in the end before getting blown up. Since it appears to mount only antipersonnel weapons, it's probably more of a Hover Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
106	* HumanoidAliens: Despite the major physiological differences between the alien invaders and humans (see StarfishAliens, below), their body plans are still basically human-like, with two arms, two legs, an upright torso, a chest with a heart ([[BizarreAlienBiology or something important, at least]]) in it, and a head on top where the ranged sensory organs are located. The fact that Sergeant Nantz could say that their AchillesHeel is "to the left of where the heart would be" says as much about their general similarities to us than their specific differences.
107	* HyperCompetentSidekick: Lance Corporal Lee Imlay. Lt. Martinez even singles him out as the squad's best marksman when briefing Nantz before their deployment.
108	* ImprovisedWeapon: Lacking in any real anti-air capability, Nantz has to take out an alien drone by [[spoiler:luring it to a gas station by a walkie-talkie and blowing it up, taking the drone with it]].
109	* InnocentlyInsensitive: Back at base, Lenihan questions why the rest of the squad are unhappy about Nantz being assigned to them given his stellar combat record, prompting Lockett to react angrily and storm off, forcing Imlay to explain one of the men killed under Nantz's command in Iraq was Lockett's brother. Cue an OhCrap reaction for Lenihan.
110	* InscrutableAliens: The aliens don't make any attempt at contact before they crash in and start killing people. It's heavily implied they're doing this because they just want to colonize Earth for themselves.
111	* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: American is one of 20 countries under attack by the aliens. At the start of the movie New York City has fallen, Boston and Los Angeles are under siege, and San Francisco and San Diego are presumed lost as well.
112	* ItsRainingMen: The aliens and their equipment land just offshore after an atmospheric insertion in giant asteroid-like ships.
113	* {{Jerkass}}: Pretty much every Marine that insults Nantz for his OnceDoneNeverForgotten moment in Iraq. They seem to assume that he ''willingly'' got his whole squad killed.
114	* JitterCam: Present, but nowhere as jittery as most modern examples.
115	* KeystoneArmy: The alien drone ships [[spoiler: are all controlled by a single Command and Control Center. Once Nantz and his surviving squad take it out with guided cruise missiles, all of the drones shut down and fall from the sky, giving the Americans control of the air once again, and presumably reducing the invaders' ability to coordinate ground forces as well.]]
116	* KillAllHumans: The aliens take no prisoners and leave no survivors, although killing all humans isn't an end unto itself -- they are slaughtering us because we are keeping them from [[PlanetLooters grabbing some resources]].
117	* KillItWithFire: The aliens favor incendiary rounds in their weapons, and one can see blackened burns on every Marine who gets wounded. Their flying saucers also like to take massive incendiary grenade/rocket launchers and sweep them over neighborhoods, and their walking tank fires what's essentially a big exploding ball of flame.
118	* LeadTheTarget: Blink and you'll miss it, but in one scene, Santos does this against one of the drones with an unguided single-shot rocket launcher. You can see her targeting the drone, but then she aims in front of it and intercepts it midflight.
119	* TheLoad: The civilians that the Marines are sent in to evacuate. Unlike most examples, they generally avoid getting in the way, and the two adults try to help as best they can. One of them is a veterinarian and helps dissect the wounded alien in the police station, and the other helps in combat by dragging the wounded to safety, at one point [[spoiler:picking up a dropped assault rifle and shooting one of the aliens]].
120	* MacrossMissileMassacre: Walking Guns fire missile-like plasma projectiles in clustered swarms that occasionally home in, to devastating effect.
121	* ManlyTears: When Nantz recites the names of the men who died under his command and ends with Lockett's brother, Lockett starts weeping.
122	* MarsNeedsWater: The alien invaders are sucking up the oceans.
123	* MauveShirt: Even a lot of the ''named'' Marines get killed.
124	* TheMedic: Doc, [[InsistentTerminology though he's quick to specify he is not a medic, but a Navy corpsman.]]
125	* MonsterDelay: It's a while before we ever get a clear look at any of the alien beings, and even when we do, the camera does everything it can to avoid lingering on them.
126	* TheMothership: Each city being attacked has one massive Command and Control center that commands all the drones.
127	* MoodDissonance: Leading up to the character squad's first encounter. There's smoke from weapons fire, abandoned cars, charred corpses, the sounds of distant explosions, not a living being in sight. The squad hears something, gets to cover with weapons trained on the direction the sound comes from, waiting for an alien to pop out of the smoke... and up runs someone's pet dog. Cue about half a minute of relieved comments, relaxing, joking about the dog's name (Glenn), soundtrack's calmed down, viewers think it'll be another five or ten minutes of walking to the fight, maybe with an animal sidekick... And then the silence is broken by [[SignatureRoar a screeching alien battle cry]] and enemy troops opening fire. Explosions, shots raining down from multiple rooftops as well as the direction the dog ran in from, dramatic music and screaming both start up, and one of the Marines gets dragged off into the scenery.
128	* MoreDakka: If it doesn't have six barrels and can't shoot missiles, it's probably not in the alien armory.
129	* MyGreatestFailure: Nantz is still haunted by the loss of his entire squad during a botched mission in Iraq.
130	* NiceGuy: Doc.
131	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Nantz invokes this in refusing [[spoiler: to abandon the mortally wounded Lieutenant Martinez]], even though the aliens are about to overwhelm their position.
132	-->'''Nantz''': I am not leaving you here! [[SuddenlyShouting NO I'M NOT LEAVING YOU]]! [[SurvivorGuilt Not again!]]
133	* NotSoDifferentRemark: When some Marines spot an alien commander spotting for two alien snipers on top of a roof. One surmises they may be just like them -- grunts with families and a home, told to fight with no real idea why they're fighting.
134	* NotSoStoic: Nantz's controlled demeanor cracks three times. The first is when he blows up the drone in the gas station, where his fingers tremble uncontrollably afterward.[[note]]Although that could be simple adrenaline shock.[[/note]] The second is when [[spoiler:Martinez is about to blow himself up]], where he flips out and starts screaming at him that he won't let more people die again like he did back in Iraq. The third time is when he confronts Lockett -- who believes him to be uncaring about his men and unfit for duty -- and explains to him that the faces, names, and serial numbers of every man who died under his command haunt him every day.
135	* NotThatKindOfDoctor: By a veterinarian who helped them find the right spot to shoot the aliens, and in the process averting OpenHeartDentistry.
136	-->'''Michele:''' You should have someone look at that.\
137	'''Nantz:''' I thought you were a doctor.\
138	'''Michele:''' Animals and aliens only.
139	* NotQuiteDead: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]], then aggressively {{defied\|Trope}}. Lenihan puts half a magazine into an alien, causing it to fall into a pool and out of sight. He doesn't drop his guard, and fires at a slight movement in the water. The rest of the team arrives and the alien springs back up, taking a barrage of bullets for its efforts. Without missing a beat, Nantz orders a [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill grenade dropped in the pool]].
140	* OpenHeartDentistry: Averted. See NotThatKindOfDoctor.
141	* OutsideGenreFoe: zigzagged. While the aliens obviously have tricks that the human defenders aren't prepared for, they also use tactics and strategies that are similar enough to human ones to be analyzed. Their infantry, as mentioned repeatedly, is functionally the same as ours in terms of tactics, equipment and disposition; the Marines may not know ''what'' that giant thing is, but they know ThisIsGonnaSuck.
142	* PlanetLooters: Seems like the aliens are out of water.
143	* PointOfView: The movie only follows the Marines. We get glimpses of what else is happening to the world, but the movie is merely concerned with this specific group.
144	* PrecisionFStrike: Nantz: "Let's show these bastards who they're fuckin' with."
145	* PreAsskickingOneLiner: The above mentioned PrecisionFStrike is delivered just before the final assault [[spoiler: on the drone control center]].
146	* PreMortemOneLiner: Not quite one line, but Martinez's [[spoiler:last bit of dialogue before his HeroicSacrifice still qualifies]]:
147	-->'''Martinez:''' This is Second Lieutenant William Martinez, Echo Company, 2nd Battalion 5th Marines. Ooh-Ra!
148	* PreviewsPulse: Used in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt7ofokzn04 the trailer]].
149	* ProductPlacement:
150	** Being funded by Sony, the film features a number of Sony products, such as Marines using Sony laptops, and a billboard advertising ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 3''.
151	** The squad passes by a RE/MAX real estate office before they get to the police station.
152	** There's a pristine Pepsi Max sign that can be seen in the background around that time as well.
153	** The drop-off point where the street-by-street deployments are laid out is in a Domino's Pizza shop.
154	* PunnyName: The platoon's radioman is LCPL Steven Mottola, who is nicknamed "Motorola".
155	* RadioSilence: The Marines have to turn off their radios once they realize that even making a short transmission allows enemy drones to home in on their position.
156	* RasputinianDeath: This happens twice...
157	** The first alien soldier to be successfully shot down rises back up a minute or two later, only to be shot down by the whole squad ''again'' and a grenade dumped on it just to be sure. It is lampshaded by a panicked and nearly delirious Lenihan.
158	--->'''Lenihan:''' It's not dead. They don't die. I've hit it a hundred times. They don't die!
159	** The second time is when they're forcibly vivisecting a wounded alien to try to figure out what part of it they have to shoot to make sure it stays dead.
160	* RealMenCook: LCPL Stavrou, the hulking machine gunner from Newark, New Jersey (not known for being the friendliest neighborhood in America) is quite knowledgeable about floral arrangements.
161	* {{Reconstruction}}: The movie takes many of the old cliches of war movies: the old SergeantRock who is just about to retire, the NewMeat lieutenant, the scared private, TheLadette, and so on, and makes them ''work''.
162	* RecycledInSpace: It's ''Film/BlackHawkDown''... with ALIENS!
163	* RedShirt: Pretty much any unnamed Marine.
164	* {{Retirony}}: Nantz is two days from retiring from the Marines when the movie starts. [[spoiler:Subverted, in that he survives the events of the movie and goes right back into the war without hesitation at the end. In fact, it's precisely because he's about to retire that he is able to cope with the deaths of others and adapt quickly, whereas the younger troops aren't ready for so gruesome a battle.]]
165	* RousingSpeech: Nantz gives one to his remaining soldiers at the FOB before their last attempt to escape the city.
166	* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:Lenihan]], [[spoiler:Simmons]], and [[spoiler:Guerrero]], all of whom are prominent in the first act, are killed when the evac helicopter is shot down to establish that A) the aliens ''do'' have air support, taking away one of humanity's biggest advantages, and B), AnyoneCanDie.
167	* SceneryGorn: All over the place... especially the opening.
168	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Thoroughly averted. According to the tie-in website, the aliens are bringing a ''massive'' invasion force numbering well in excess of ''thirty million soldiers.''
169	* SemperFi: The main characters are Marines, which makes sense since Camp Pendleton, one of the main USMC bases, is less than 100 miles away from the city and the aliens are apparently aquatic in nature; troops trained in amphibious operations are the logical soldiers to use on them.
170	* SequelHook: The humans may have won the battle in Los Angeles, but not the war. There are still at least 11 other cities getting attacked. The international release title was "World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles", one city down...
171	* SergeantRock: Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz. A veteran NCO with twenty years in the Corps and multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, he is firm, decisive, and courageous in combat, and knows when to yell at someone and when to build them back up. When LT Martinez slips into a HeroicBSOD, Nantz not only snaps him out of it, but is careful to do so away from the men to avoid undermining Martinez.
172	* ShakyCam: The camera is constantly moving and audiences were reportedly getting nauseous because of it. The filmmakers were fully aware that this might happen and refused to do a [=3D=] conversion because the additional effect would have probably caused people to vomit.
173	* ShellShockedVeteran: Lieutenant Corporal Kerns.
174	* ShownTheirWork: The tactics used by both the Marines and the alien invaders are actually quite competent, and this shows.
175	** The invaders use realistic tactics like area-denial barrages with artillery, and set up a highly-effective ambush by herding the Marines into a boxed-in position between houses where they fire on the human troops from the rooftops, using hand-signals and suppressive fire.
176	** When the aliens emerge from the water, they do so in a loose, staggered formation, with what looks to be a five-meter spread. This is pretty much the best way move from deep water to land on foot while potentially coming under fire, as being that spread out limits the effectiveness of grenades and artillery.
177	** Tech Sergeant Santos is from an Air Force Wing near [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/61st_Air_Base_Wing Los Angeles]], the soldiers are from a National Guard infantry division with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29 many units]] in California.
178	* ShutUpHannibal: Nantz's speech to the rest of his squad at the ruined FOB base is basically telling all of his men (who don't trust him because he lost his entire squad in Iraq and one of whom assumes that he deliberately engineered it in order to get a medal) to ''shut the fuck up.''
179	* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Santos is the sole woman among the Marines.
180	* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:Martinez's wife is shown to be pregnant at the beginning of the movie. He dies.]]
181	* TheSquadette: Santos is a tough female NCO who fits in perfectly with her male comrades. There are no other female armed services personnel seen serving in direct combat roles.
182	* StarfishAliens: The aliens have a very curious biology, with the majority of their vitals concentrated at an unusual part of their body (right of where their heart would be located) and make heavy use of cybernetics. The odd biology makes it difficult for the Marines to kill them effectively until they figure out where to shoot.\
183	If one looks closely at the wounded alien that is being "dissected", one can see that one of its legs is clearly damaged, and a long, rope-like tendril is extending from the creature's body. The same leg is missing the metallic/ceramic "skeleton" structures that the aliens' bio matter seems to be wrapped around, indicating that the aliens' limbs may be far longer than we're led to believe, and their bodies are held in a humanoid shape by all the machinery so they can effectively fight on land. "Doc" also digs around in the "head" area of the alien, and finds that there's nothing in there even vaguely resembling a brain as we understand it; at one point Nantz even shoots the same alien in the "head" area and it has no visible effect on the creature.
184	* TheStoic: Nantz's emotions are generally muted; he has a job to do and rarely lets his personal feelings out. Santos even says that he reminds her of her brother, because "He never smiles either."
185	* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: The aliens' tendency towards water allows them to launch deadly surprise attacks from unexpected directions. One tries it early on in the film, only to get shot up... twice.
186	* ThatsAnOrder: When Nantz refuses to leave [[spoiler:Martinez behind so he can perform his HeroicSacrifice, Martinez]] tells him to get a note to his wife, and ends what he has to say with this. After which, Nantz reluctantly complies.
187	* TheyWouldCutYouUp: A pragmatic variant. Staff Sergeant Nantz, Navy Hospital Corpsman Adukwu, and Michele (a veterinarian) cut open a wounded alien, not to save its life, but to [[AttackItsWeakPoint figure out how to kill it efficiently]] so the Marines don't waste their ammo. [[spoiler: They discover that the aliens' heads are purely sensory organs, and their brains are ''behind'' their "hearts".]]
188	-->'''Adukwu:''' No frontal lobe, no temporal lobe, no parietal lobe. The cranial vault is unlike anything I have ever seen.
189	* TimeToStepUpCommander: Twice.
190	* TrailersAlwaysSpoil:
191	** In the early parts of the movie, the military believes that the enemy is exclusively ground-based. However, anyone who saw the trailer before coming to see the movie (which is probably everyone), was already well-aware that this belief was going to change in short order. On the other hand, it probably wasn't a major twist as the alien aircraft were shown in the first few seconds of the movie.
192	** Also, when the helicopter near the police station is lifting off, everyone who's seen the trailer knows it's about to explode.
193	** A big part of the trailer is the large "something" coming up from underground, along with it being on the movie posters. When they blast the top antenna-thing on the command center, you know it's going to rise up soon.
194	* UrbanWarfare: As most of the scenes take place in Los Angeles, this is to be expected.
195	* VasquezAlwaysDies: [[spoiler:Surprisingly, Creator/MichelleRodriguez lives through this one.]]
196	* WalkingTank: The aliens have a 7-foot tall walking gun that fires missiles, piloted by one alien behind it. [[MacrossMissileMassacre A lot of missiles.]] In clusters. Things explode. A lot.
197	* WarCrimeSubvertsHeroism: The sequence where Nantz [[spoiler:stabs, cuts, and tears at a still-living alien to figure out where to hit it to kill it, all while it weakly writhes in obvious agony]]. Unlike most such scenes, there's no accompanying moral commentary on the action; the viewer is left to decide themselves between whether or not Nantz's are cruel or justified. It's an interesting case, given that [[spoiler:Nantz actually is not trying to torture it, but rather trying to learn how to kill the alien efficiently; it just takes him a while to figure exactly out how to do that, as the aliens' anatomy is unlike anything ever seen on Earth]].
198	* WarIsHell: Definitely played this way. Combat is chaotic, noisy, and hellish. Soldiers have breakdowns, there's a scene that would be torture for any other reason but the way they're doing it (they're trying to figure out how to kill the thing as quickly as possible, not trying to cause it a lot of pain), pretty much every other scene where Nantz's unit is walking down a street there's at least one dead civilian, plus the panorama of the wrecked beach with smoking craters, hundreds of bodies, and wrecked vehicles everywhere.
199	* WeatherOfWar: The movie begins in a crowded urban area choked by smoke and fog, the worst possible condition for fighting short of everything being on fire. It works both ways for both sides.
200	* WhamLine: For the Marines, while getting briefed.
201	-->"These objects are not falling at terminal velocity. They are ''slowing down.''"
202	** Later, when they finally make contact with friendly forces;
203	-->'''Helicopter Crew Chief:''' [[spoiler: We're abandoning Los Angeles!]]
204	* WouldNotShootACivilian: Subverted in the case of the aliens, who open fire on a beach crowded with people and proceed to shoot indiscriminately at everything they see. Civilian bodies are often seen in various areas.
205	* YouAreInCommandNow: The [[spoiler: mortally wounded Lieutenant Martinez invokes this to Nantz just before his HeroicSacrifice. telling Nantz to get the rest of the squad out before the aliens overwhelm them]].
206	-->'''[[spoiler: Martinez]]''': [[spoiler: I've a bag of C4 on the bus. Get this to my wife ''[hands over a letter]'' and get them off this goddamned freeway!]]
207

Context Film / BattleLosAngeles